Sirius

Through the wonders of television technology, Howard Stern was again able to appear on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' (Weeknights, 12AM ET on ABC) without the bother of having to fly there. The pair have used green-screen magic for interviews before, and it remained almost seamless.

This time, Stern was on to explain his ideas for what to do with Charlie Sheen now that he's running out of places to do interviews, and 'Two and a Half Men' is still done for the season. Stern has feelers out to Sheen with an offer to be a part of one of Stern's Sirius radio stations.

"We want to put a microphone in your house," he said. "Anytime you feel like going on the radio and doing a radio show, we'll break into our programming and you can have control of the airwaves ... Charlie Radio 24 hours a day, because there's nothing better than that."

Update: It appears this may actually be happening. Sirius just announced it's launching a 24-hour all-Sheen channel called 'Tiger Blood Radio.' Sheen is not officially affiliated with the station, but would anyone be surprised if he graced the new channel with an interview or seven? Actually, he'll probably be hosting by Tuesday. That's what we call #winning.

Howard Stern has never held back when it comes to his feelings on Jay Leno. He talks about it on his SIRIUS show, he has talked about it on 'The Late Show,' and now he went on CBS' 'The Early Show' (from his studio) to talk to Harry Smith about Leno's return to 'The Tonight Show.' The words "vomit" and "thief" are mentioned.

At the end, Smith also asks him about going back to terrestrial radio and a possible offer from 'American Idol.' (Sorry for the video quality - CBS hasn't posted the video yet for some reason.)

This entire situation seems more sound and fury and it's unlikely that anything would come of it. All Stern has in common with Cowell is the ability to be obnoxious and denigrating of other people. Cowell at least had ties to the music industry before appearing as an 'Idol' judge. While Howard Stern does work in radio, he thankfully has not released a CD of himself singing the Beatles' greatest hits. If he has, I missed it.

Most likely this situation is being used by Stern as a bargaining chip for a renegotiation of his contract with Sirius. Stern would be too much of a turn-off for the majority of viewers for 'American Idol'. If he does end up replacing Cowell, then it could signal the beginning of the end of 'American Idol'.

I might have enjoyed my first experience that brought me in contact with her. But she's grown painfully irritating over the years, and I can't seem to get rid of her now. No matter what happens, she just keeps coming back to irritate me further -- leaving me to wonder what ever led me to welcome her irritation in the first place.

When O'Donnell proved too annoying even for The View, and then flamed out on her disastrous one-off variety show, I thought we'd seen the last of her. But it looks like we'll at least "hear" from her again, as she's moved away from the TV talk circuit and taken a gig hosting her own satellite radio talk show on Sirius XM.

You think Oprah Winfrey is already the most powerful person on television? You have no idea.

Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced a deal today that will have the Discovery Health Channel given to Oprah and switched to The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN - really!). In return, Discovery gets Oprah's web site. I'm not really sure what getting to run Oprah's web site means for Discovery, but it will be part of the network.

A little bit of late news for you: Jim Breuer is the new host of Web Junk 20. He actually premiered on Friday, but I'm a little slow this week. Web Junk 20 is a weekly countdown-type show on VH1 that airs all the biggest viral videos of the week. You may remember Jim Breuer as 'Goat Boy' for four years on Saturday Night Live. He also has a hilarious comedy special that occasionally airs on Comedy Central, and he's currently hosting the second most popular radio show on Sirius (behind Howard Stern) called Jim Breuer Unleashed.

Best Week Ever has a clip of Breuer here. While it's great to see Breuer again, I don't like the show's format where the host interrupts video clips to make remarks that aren't all that funny.

Seems that Entourage star Jeremy Piven doesn't like Jack Black that much. Black beat out Piven for the role of the record store employee in the John Cusack flick High Fidelity, and thinks that Piven still holds a grudge. Black told Howard Stern that he was talking to a director at a movie premiere recently, and right in the middle of the conversation, Piven stepped in between them with his back to Black and started to talk to the director. Of course, Piven's rep insists there's no problem between the two.

This is interesting, because Piven is very good friends with Cusack, and appears in most of his movies in some role. So I wonder why (or if) Piven wasn't chosen for the role in High Fidelity.

If you listen to Howard Stern's Sirius radio show -- or was a fan of his terrestrial radio show -- and you have digital cable, you may have been skittish to pay the $9.99-13.99 per month that it costs to have access to the show's on-demand TV channel, Howard TV. The folks at on-demand provider in DEMAND know this, which is why they're offering "free" access to the channel on the weekend of November 3-5. Well, actually, it's a "penny preview" weekend, the nominal charge implemented to keep minors from accessing the channel (good luck with that, cable providers!).

For that penny, though, you'll be able to see Howard's new and raunchy Sirius shows -- think Sybian, lots of swearing, and the genitals of show flunkies Richard Christie and Sal Governale -- along with classic bits from the terrestrial show that may or may not have made it to the air when E! had the show's TV rights. To introduce the weekend, the in DEMAND folks have been putting out provocative ads, with taglines like the one in the picture above, and fuzzy pictures of lesbians kissing. What did you think the ads were going to show, Crackhead Bob?

It looks like ranks of millionaires on the Howard Stern show are growing. Fans already knew that Howard, Robin Quivers, Artie Lange, Fred Norris, and likely Gary Dell'Abate were all swimming in dough. But to those names you can add... Jon Hein?

Yes, Jon Hein. Hein, the creator of the ingenious web site Jump The Shark, and also an on-air staffer for Sirius' Howard 100 and 101 channels, announced this morning that he sold his web site to TV Guide for an undisclosed sum. As part of the deal, he will also be a contributor to the TVG web site.

I'm guessing that Jon finally decided to sell the site, in which users chronicle when their favorite shows started slipping creatively (like when Fonzie jumped the shark on Happy Days), to concentrate on his work with Howard. I'm surprised, actually, that the site went as long as it did after Jon joined Howard's crew. But I'm happy for the guy; he seems like a nice guy and a hard worker, and if anyone deserves to profit from one of those "why didn't I think of that?" ideas, it's Jon.

Now I wonder what our friends over at "The Guide" are going to do with the site. Hope they don't ruin it.

Starting in June, SIRIUS Satellite Radio will begin airing a weekly show revolving around the upcoming season of HBO's Deadwood. Hosted by The Gem Saloon's own W. Earl Brown (he plays Dan Dority), the show will feature interviews with other cast members, discussions of previous episodes, and news about upcoming ones. The nice thing about SIRIUS is that all of them will be able to swear and curse as much as we're accustomed to hearing. The recap show premieres on SIRIUS on Saturday June, 10 at 8PM and the Deadwood season three premiere airs on HBO the following night at 9PM. It was recently announced that this will be the final season of Deadwood.

Did you miss Howard Stern's triumphant debut
on Sirius this morning? I didn't; I woke up at 5:30 excited to hear the new show. I even had to devise an "antenna
on a stick" in order to get decent reception. But at 6, Howard came on and ended up doing over five commercial-free
hours of unrestricted radio. He and the crew sounded energized and loose, and the program, while it didn't have a lot of
profanity, did have a nice uninterrupted flow that I haven't heard on the show in fifteen years. It was quite a
satisfying listen.

(UPDATE: I forgot about one other new wrinkle to the show: George Takei is the new announcer! He'll be on the show live all week. He meshed
surprisingly well with the cast. What a great move.)

What does this have to do with TV? You mean, besides the
unyielding coverage that will be on the news and entertainment shows? Well, somewhere during the morning, Howard
mentioned that the entire first show will be available on his Howard Stern On
Demand channel later tonight. So if you have HSOD and are curious as to what the new studio looked like, keep an
eye out for the program tonight.